Tesla chair Robyn Denholm joins Australian AI start-up Harrison.ai

Tech firm Harrison.ai has welcomed to its board Tesla chair Robyn Denholm as it scales up its AI-based medical solutions.

Tesla chair and Blackbird Ventures operating partner Robyn Denholm. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Tesla chair and Blackbird Ventures operating partner Robyn Denholm has joined the board of Sydney-based healthcare tech start-up Harrison.ai as it moves to scale up its AI-based medical solutions.

The business, previously named in The Australian’s Top 100 Innovators list, describes itself as a clinician-led healthcare AI company which develops and deploys AI diagnostic-assistance solutions to increase accuracy and efficiency.

The firm has already commercialised two products through a partnership with the I-MED Radiology Network, including AI decision-support solutions for CT brain studies and chest X-rays. Harrison.ai has also signed a second joint venture with Sonic Healthcare to bring AI technologies to pathology.

“I’m incredibly excited to be joining the Harrison.ai board, having been a strategic adviser to the organisation for some time now,” Ms Denholm said in a statement.

“I look forward to working with the board to realise the Harrison.ai mission to scale global healthcare capacity using AI.”

In a statement to The Australian, Harrison.ai chief executive and co-founder Dr Aengus Tran welcomed Ms Denholm’s appointment.

The start-up was founded by Sydney brothers Aengus and Dimitry Tran, who came to Australia as young boys from Vietnam.

“We are thrilled to announce that Robyn is joining the board of Harrison.ai and we are excited to work with such an experienced global technology leader,” Dr Tran said.

Harrison.ai was founded by Sydney brothers Aengus and Dimitry Tran.

“Robyn believes in our vision and brings a wealth of knowledge that will be invaluable as we look to our next phase of growth.”

Originally from Sydney’s western suburbs, Ms Denholm grew up working in her migrant parents’ petrol station and, after university, embarked on an accountancy degree which led her start to begin at accountancy firm Arthur Anderson.

She has had executive roles at Toyota and in the mid 1990s pivoted into technology, joining computer gear manufacturer Sun Microsystems.

A single mother of two, she found herself in the US and moved to major network equipment maker Juniper Networks in 2007 where she became chief financial and operating officer.

She was recruited by Tesla in 2014 as a non-executive director and in early 2017 returned to Sydney to take up the chief operations officer role at Telstra. In October 2018 she became the telco giant’s effective second in charge as its chief financial officer.

Five weeks later she resigned after agreeing to take over from controversial entrepreneur Elon Musk as the chair of Tesla.

Ms Denholm, who is speaking on Thursday in Brisbane at the Tech Council of Australia‘s National Tech Summit, told the QUT Business Leaders’ Forum this month it was important that Australia embraced a new vision for the economy away from a reliance on mining and agriculture.

The Tech Council of Australia has set the goal that by 2030 tech activity across all industries will contribute $250bn every year to the national GDP. It also wants the tech sector to employ more than 1.2 million Australians.

“Tech is here to stay and is set to grow and expand at a blistering pace. No matter what cyclical downturns tech may face, it will keep growing – it must, because our future prosperity depends upon it,” Ms Denholm said.

“It’s true that tech has been in the news recently as a result of prominent lay-offs across the world. Obviously when big tech firms sneeze, some commentators claim the industry is headed for the ICU,” Ms Denholm said.

“But times are different. Tech is different. While external pressures come and go, the trend has stayed the same – more of our jobs and more of what we make in Australia is reliant on tech.

“It would be a mistake to make decisions about Australia’s long-term future based on a cyclical downturn.”

Additional reporting by Chris Herde